Ratan Tata would like to retire from active business life after his dream project — the Rs one-lakh car — is launched successfully. “In an ideal world, after the small car has been launched and is successful, that would be a nice time for me to exit,” Tata told the ‘Financial Times’ newspaper. Tata Motors, the automotive arm of the over Rs three- trillion market value group, is scheduled to unveil the vehicle, touted as the world’s cheapest mass-produced car, on January 10 at an auto expo in New Delhi. Rival car manufacturers and enviromental activist have already raised apprehension about the safety and emission standards of the car, coming as it is at that price level. However, Mr Tata stresses the benefits of safer transport for tens of thousands of families that currently move around on single motorbikes. Osamu Suzuki, chairman of Suzuki Motors India’s largest passenger carmaker, recently said that anyone selling a car that cheaply would have to scrimp on safety and emission standards, compromising their responsibilities as a manufacturer. Mr Tata disagrees. “We’re producing a car that will be no more polluting than a motorcycle,” he says. “As we’re not going to produce millions and millions of them, inundating the country, we will not be adding to the carbon footprint on a per-passenger basis.” Between the cost of the average two-wheeler and entry-level cars such as the Maruti 800, which retails for about $5,000, there is still a big gap and Mr Tata plans to fill it. New roads will follow, the company argues, and so too, in time, might a more environmentally friendly small car, although not for the bottom of the pyramid. “The only reason we didn’t make the one-lakh car a hybrid, for example, is that it could not have been priced at one lakh,” Mr Tata says.
excerpts from Financial Times